Friends on YouTube

YouTube Friends are people with whom you can message videos and chat privately on the YouTube app. People only become friends after an invitation is sent by one person and accepted by the other. You can add friends to YouTube in three ways:

Add contacts

Go to the Activity tab .

Tap Shared.

Select View contacts.

Tap Add contacts.

Choose how you’d like to add contacts.

The recipient must accept your invitation before you can share videos with them. Recipients need the YouTube mobile app and a Google Account to accept your invitation. Invitation links expire after 72 hours if not accepted.

View & manage contacts list

Go to the Activity tab .

Tap Shared.

Select View contacts.

Tap on any contact to view their channel, remove them from your contacts, or block them.

Manage suggestions for people you may know

When you share a video, people you may know may appear as suggestions based on your usage of YouTube and other Google products. When you share a video with a contact in the "You may know" section, they will need to accept your invitation before they can view the shared video.

Note that when you view a message, others in the chat will be able to see that you've viewed it. You'll also see when others have viewed a chat message you've sent — the note "Seen" or "Seen by <Contact name>" will show in the chat.

To remove the "You may know" section from the Activity tab , tap X at the top of the section.

Receive invitations

If you are invited to connect on YouTube, you'll receive a notification that someone wants to start sharing videos with you. You can:

Accept the invitation to become contacts with that user on YouTube.

If you don't want the person to share or chat with you, you can tap Cancel to ignore the invitation.